1. Prior Art
Related Articles
S. M. Trujillo, R. H. Neynaber, E. W. Rothe, Rev. of Sci. Instr., 37 (1966) 1655-1661. R. E. Neynaber and G. D. Magnuson, J. of Chem Phys., 59 (1973) 825-829. E. E. Carlston and G. D. Magnuson, Rev. of Sci. Instr., 33 (1962) 905-911. K. H. Berkner, W. S. Cooper, K. W. Ehlers, and R. V. Pyle, "Performance of a Developmental 120-KeV, 10-A Deuterium (14-A Hydrogen) Neutral Beam System", Proceedings of the Seventh Symposium on Engineering Problems of Fusion Research, Knoxville, Tenn., Oct. 25-28, 1977, pp. 1405-1407.
2. Field of Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to merged ion-electron particle beams and, in particular to a merged ion-electron particle beam capable of destroying objects from a moveable space platform.
The above U.S. patent application disclosed and claimed an ionization and neutralization method and apparatus for a neutral beam injection system comprising the technique of merging a high energy ion beam with a co-moving electron beam of equal intensity to form neutral particles for injection into a plasma reactor.
This invention also produces the beam by space charge neutralization of an ionic beam with a co-moving electron beam merged with the ion beam such that blow up at high intensities due to coulomb repulsion is prevented. The beam density is determined by the choice of ion species and by merging the beams in a low interaction energy environment. As will be clear from the more detailed discussion hereinafter, the beam is of high density (high dielectric constant) and less susceptible to the earth's magnetic effects over the entire beam path length. It may also be made neutral, depending on choice of ion species, density and interaction energy.
This invention also includes a technique of significantly improving the quality of the emerged ion-electron beam by passing it through an axial magnetic field generated by a long solenoid as it leaves the neutralization region. The magnetic field will compress the beam as well as increase its transverse temperature. Line radiation will cool the free electrons, which in turn will cool the ions. When the beam emerges from the magnetic field, it expands and cools with the net result of providing a beam of very high quality (low emittance) which will travel to a target without enormous spread.
Accordingly it is an object of this invention to provide an apparatus and method for producing a merged ion-electron particle beam which will destroy objects in space and which is capable of producing such beam from a moveable space platform.
This and other objects of this invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art after a review of the drawings and the more detailed description hereinafter.